/Big Question/ Hasta la Vista
22/11/2007 | Filed under Discover > Big Question
What do you think of Vista, and should Microsoft abandon it?
Application manager
Gavin Dandridge
Fortune Cookie
I’m not a big fan of Vista or its AERO user interface, which feels bloated and far too hardware-dependent for my liking. Besides, trying to carry out even simple admin tasks now seems to involve opening up a plethora of menus and submenus. Vista’s security model also feels like a step too far. The UAC (user access control) seems to constantly bother you with nagging messages asking for your permission to execute a file or to change some settings. Yes, I could turn that feature off but then I’d be less secure. Dammed if I do, dammed irritated if I don’t!
Vista took far too long to come to market and, in the meantime, XP made a place for itself as a reliable, dependable and respected OS. (At least it did after a few of the obligatory service packs.) Despite all this, I really don’t think Microsoft should abandon Vista. Instead, I hope it will take the recent bad press onboard and release a series of service packs that will deliver us the next generation OS we’d all hoped for.
In fairness, the hardware dependency issues will slowly fade into the past as computing technology continues to become faster. In 18 months' time, I expect even entry level hardware will run Vista quite acceptably, and with a few good service packs from Microsoft, I may just consider it as an OS worth upgrading to. For now, I’m sticking with XP.
Gavin Dandridge is IT & application services manager at Fortune Cookie, a UK-based web design agency
Activist
Oxblood Ruffin
Hacktivismo
There’s not a single security expert in the world (not beholden to Microsoft for his/her pay cheque) who would say that MS operating systems play well with the rest of the internet. Having said that, Vista is a fact. I’d never use it, but much of the consumer market will. So, where does that leave me? Fighting a defensive action! I don’t care about Vista or Redmond’s legacy stable of shame. I care about myself and the rest of the internet that takes security seriously. I’ve got my AV software and firewalls up to date. I hope everyone else has, too.
Oxblood Ruffin is the founder of Hacktivismo, and is an active campaigner against web censorship
Academic
Rob Macredie
Brunel University
I’m a Mac user and have been since the 1980s, so I’m always a bit perplexed by the Microsoft OS issues. Most users just want an OS that they can use easily and that is stable and secure. My conversations with PC users is that Microsoft OSes over the years haven’t measured up to their needs. Vista is the latest in a line of releases that have had problems that I’d find unacceptable if I had to use it on a daily basis. Don Reisinger’s post about Vista at the Digital Home is persuasive, but I don’t think it will lead Microsoft to change its direction. So, if you want change, create it yourself: start using Linux or get a Mac.
Rob is head of information systems, computing and mathematics, and professor of interactive systems at Brunel University
Internet playboy
Drew Curtis
Fark
I’ve been telling people for years that I’m going to start a website of movie reviews written by people who haven’t actually seen the movie they’re reviewing. I haven’t used Vista, but I will say it sucks and Microsoft should abandon it so it can release an all-new operating system two years from now and rake in giant piles of cash. That’s what I would do anyhow.
Drew is the owner of Fark.com, which started life as a collection of links to interesting news stories, and has evolved into a hugely popular site
Hosting provider
Neil Hodson
1&1 Internet
There’s no doubt that Windows Vista has some really great features. Importantly, it looks great and this provides a genuinely inspiring backdrop from which to explore new kinds of functionality. Microsoft has added powerful and convenient tools for search, memory exchange and resource management for running processes efficiently and productively. I like the new layouts and versions of the office apps, and I appreciate Windows Media Center built-in. This is all commendable. However, unless you have a brand new computer or spend huge amounts on a video card and memory, Vista is literally out of reach.
Even with modest requirements, I’ve experienced real problems. Having bought a new Vista laptop, I had problems from the start, collaborating on seemingly incompatible documents and presentations. The sheer number of automatic updates is exasperating and, at worst, the user is either harrassed with auto updates or forced to hunt down drivers to be manually imported from XP. Such problems could be forgivable given the scope of Vista, but unforgivable given the price.
Having made improvements in a number of areas, it would be ridiculous to kill Vista. No matter what the techies say, once ironed out, I’m convinced it will fully provide a far more inspiring system than XP.
Neil Hodson is the UK general manager at 1&1 Internet, a global web hosting company and domain registrar with more than five million customers
Communications guru
Rachel Hawkes
Elemental Communications
I don’t believe abandoning Vista is warranted, but there’s always people out there that love things just because everyone else hates them. I’ve used Vista - it was hard work. The problem is the lack of support available for programs, software and equipment. I purchased a DLink wireless modem and router for a new PC and broadband connection, and it was nightmarish to actually (finally) get it operating correctly. I’m by no means a boffin, but I struggled to even find the network settings!
When “Vista Supported” is a selling point, that’s a problem. When you can’t choose to buy a brand new machine without Vista, that too is a problem. I pity people that are new to computers and their first operating system is Vista. I actually really like Microsoft as a company, but I wonder if it wasn’t just a little too desperate to introduce ground-breaking-everyone-can’t-stop-talking-about software to catch up with its ever rising competitors that it didn’t fully think Vista through.
It will certainly be interesting to watch corporate mouthpieces try to blow over the current anti-Vista storm. It’s not the first, and I’m sure it won’t be the last.
Rachel Hawkes is an account director at Elemental Communications, a media communications consultancy that caters for traditional and digital media
Web app expert
Deri Jones
SciVisum
My perspective, from 24/7 monitoring of websites for customer experience, is primarily focused around internet browsing on Vista. It’s this area that has made me critical of Microsoft in the past, and it’s the poor experience of users with IE7 on Vista that’s been the source of a lot of grief for users all over the world in the last 12 months. (Even a lot of users in South Korea, where the government in effect recommended caution about buying Vista, knowing that a lot of their big sites had been designed around IE6 as standard, instead of around true internet standards.)
IE7 could have been so good. IE6 became an embarrassment to Microsoft after the word about Firefox got out - tabbed browsing, clever page searching, and so on. So Microsoft was potentially well-motivated to get IE7 right, despite earlier stating that IE6 was the final browser it would ever produce. It became clear over a year ago that Microsoft was going to make IE7 more standards-based and accessible ... but not all the way. Even before its launch, Microsoft guys blogged that it would do worse on some of the trickiest web-standards browser tests than Firefox and Opera. That’s bad news for web developers everywhere. Not only were they going to have to rewrite their sites to correct some of the IE6-isms (that would fail under IE7), but now the spectre is raised that IE8 will come along one day. It may be a little closer to the standards, but it will force everyone to redesign again to remove the quirky IE7 workarounds.
It’s no surprise that, today, many developers no longer use IE as a platform to test their handiwork on. Firefox became their tool of choice because of its adherence to the standards; and IE is only used to check a site at the last stages, in case any of the IE quirks are bad enough to warrant attention.
Some of our online retail clients have spent silly amounts of precious web developer time faffing about with issues that Vista brought with it - that’s a real cost to the clients whose websites we test. And extrapolated to the whole country, that’s potentially 10s or 100s of millions of pounds worth of programmer and web developer time lost.
My answer: Yes, Microsoft should abandon Vista on engineering grounds and on sound business-oriented customer service reasons. Whether it will or not is a different matter. I can’t see anyone betting that it will.
Deri Jones is CEO of SciVisum, a web and application testing service based in Kent
Media & PR expert
Tim Gibbon
Elemental Communications
I’m still using Windows XP and Office 2003, and I’m satisfied with what it delivers. I’ve ordered a few new machines for our company that had Vista preinstalled on them, but I’ve not yet had the opportunity to use it myself. I’m told it’s “neat and really easy to use” by some colleagues, while others find it completely alien after using XP for so long, and had issues with the interface. There isn’t anyone in our circle who has come a cropper from Vista woes (thank goodness) apart from a few Wi-Fi issues that have been solved. Therefore, although I’m not fearful of the software problems, the damage to the wallet is more of a concern. I’m not about to rush out to buy Vista, because my next machines are most certainly going to be Macs after having an uncomfortable gutful with PCs/laptops.
Sat in an office with quite a few technology heads (a few PhD boffins) that are hooked into office 2007, they seem to like Microsoft’s software, though I can’t see any of them using Vista just yet. I could be wrong, but if memory serves me correctly, I can’t think of any other
Microsoft software release that didn’t come with issues, even many months after its full marketing extravaganza.
In any case, abandoning the software with so much R&D and marketing pushed at it is going to be painful, not to mention the repercussions for the brand (if that’s not going to mess with Microsoft’s loyalty, I don’t know what could). I think that would be more damaging regardless how many units having gathered dust on the shelves, or headaches users have experienced. As with other versions of software, perhaps Microsoft could be waiting for the next release for users to experience what they’re looking for. With Mac surging ahead, and search engines such as Google delving into Microsoft’s domain, there are certainly more interesting times ahead.
Tim is founder and director of Elemental Communications, a media communications consultancy that caters for traditional and digital media
Ecommerce specialist
Chris Barling
Actinic
Don’t get me wrong - I understand Microsoft’s perspective. New products are the lifeblood of most businesses, and without them software companies will quickly pass away. However, Vista has been a total pain. When, between the final release candidate and the production release, Microsoft turned on User Access Control, it inflicted massive, unexpected disruption to my business. So, while Vista may have generated bigger profits for Microsoft, it simply generated more costs for Actinic.
And for what? Sure, Vista does have some cool new stuff for home users, but for business use, I’m not particularly bothered because XP works just fine. However, Microsoft can’t turn back. It needs the revenue and it needs new weapons to fight its war with Apple. Standing still just isn’t going to happen.
A wise person once told me that there’s no point in worrying about things you can’t change. Good advice for all. In a couple of years, most people will be using Vista and today’s problems will be long forgotten. To paraphrase a line from The Matrix, the boot-up sound of Vista is the sound of the inevitable.
Chris founded the well-known ecommerce software development company Actinic in 1996
Bookmark with:
Comments
Alice / 22/11/2007 / 16:42
When it became time to change my husband's computer, the choice became obvious: Buy a Mac. We became annoyed at having to buy an antivirus every year, and the computer becoming slower by the minute. After reading about the caveats of Vista, the choice was made for us.
Mark / 22/11/2007 / 18:11
They'll continue to sell any old rubbish because people buy any old rubbish.
Timel Patel / 22/11/2007 / 22:31 / http://www.dubblevision.com
After recently purchasing a new computer with Vista Business pre-installed, I was very disappointed. Although I can not comment on a speed comparison with XP as the new computer is much quicker, I think Microsoft have tried too hard and complicated things which should have been left alone. For example, the My Computer screen now with its bars to show the percentage of used disk space is too much. Im also not very fond of the new arrows in the url / name section of the location bar in the files explorer. Too many mouse clicks involved.
The security popups are also very annoying. Every little change seems to require several clicks of the mouse before the change happens. I am now wishing that I ordered the computer with XP as after service pack 2, it was very decent. I know there are many new things which Microsoft have added to Vista - I just hope these little issues can be solved in Service Packs in the near future to make Vista, as stable as XP was and still is.
I believe this release of Windows Vista will add to the popularity of Mac's - especially with the release of their new OS. Ive been a Microsoft user for many years now - I have only been using Mac's for several weeks now and still have yet to purchase one however i already think they are the future and will become more popular - maybe even overtaking Windows some day!
Paul Jensen / 23/11/2007 / 11:52 / http://tickex.com
Vista is a compromise on the original concept laid out in Longhorn, and so for many developers it was a shame, but I don't think anyone anticipated that Vista would be as bad as it is.
As a web developer for a search engine I had a brief experience of using Vista for my development work, but soon switched to Linux. It was easier to setup the development platform on, consumed less hardware resources, and what was most surprising, was faster at database performance.
Vista's popularity is ensued by the fact that the majority of consumers will continue to buy computers from major retailers who put Vista on as standard. The product may be inferior, but I don't think it will be enough to see a landslide change to the alternatives offered by various Linux distributions and Apple's Mac OS X.
I don't think Microsoft will abandon Vista, but they're currently developing the next version of Windows as we speak, and will do well to learn from their mistakes made here. Personally I would like to see them return to the original vision laid out in Longhorn, and actually have the guts to stick with the project, and not get itchy over scope creep. In fact some rogue developers within the company attempted to resurrect development on an early beta release of Longhorn, but were briefly stopped by Microsoft.
It says a lot about Vista when even the developers want to hark back to the original idea.
Paul Jensen is a developer for Tickex, a vertical search engine for tickets.
Martin Hughes / 23/11/2007 / 14:52 / http://www.mozilla.com/firefox/
Vista is a good thing if only for the required Internet Explorer 7 forcing people to use at least Internet Explorer 7. Great for making a website designers' life easier. If only all those XP users who cant upgrade to Internet Explorer 7 would switch to Firefox 2.
Matt Auckland / 24/11/2007 / 00:27 / http://lots of sites
Hi,
I’m not sure why people say Vista is so nasty, unstable, and just rubbish, I have never had a problem.
Just before I get going, I’m not in Microsoft’s back pocket. I’m a freelance IT consultant and website designer/coder since 1995, and I have been into computer and using/ripping them apart since I was very very young in the very early 80’s. My first computer I played on was a ZX Spectrum that my dad programmed on whilst I sat on his knee, and I remember reading “hairy hackers haunts” when I was first learning programming on my Amstrad CPC 464 (what ever happened to hairy hackers haunt?). I run Linux on my web server, XP Home on my laptop, Vista on my shuttle PC, plus I have an iPhone (unlocked from the US of course!)
I have run all major releases of MS OS since DOS 3, and also used Macs. But to be honest I have not had an issue with my Vista PC at all.
I game and develop on it. I run an old pre-vista Adobe Audition for audio editing. I happily run VNC remote on it, heck even run a 3 year old HP printer on it over the network! I also do all my gaming on it, running everything from Battle Field 2 to Crysis happily.
I have had Vista Ultimate since beta, and joined the beta team in the early stages. Yes I will admit the early releases were buggy as hell, but once they hit RC1 it was stable enough. If anything NVIDIA was my biggest pain. They were so slack in getting drivers out there.
With SP1 now on the RC release, it will fix any issues and introduce new features for Vista users. Only thing that really bugs me is the lack of HD support in Vista Media Centre, but with that in mind there are people out there building work arounds as we speak.
And as for the look and Aero. Vista is just like any other Windows platform. If you don’t like Aero, turn it back to classic and quit moaning.
Keep the faith.
Francis / 24/11/2007 / 02:10
As a desktop, I still use windows 2000 on a 1Gb memory, 500 Mhz machine as a desktop, and it has never failed me:
Webbrowsing, music playing with Itunes, skype, everything works. My router has a firewall, and the virusprotection is on. For movies I use the newer Apple.
Aside of it, I run also Apple and Linux on a file server.
I did not have any security issues as yet, although the security needs regular maintenance.
Can anybody please explain to me why I should buy a new computer to upgrade to Windows XP? or even Vista?
Jim Barton / 24/11/2007 / 10:42
I got Vista on a new laptop, and immediately hated it. Aero and all of the other fancy pretty resource wasting STUFF. I've switched off those pointless side bar widget things. I've cut back to the fast version, and it still felt slow.
The colour scheme is awful. Too many pastels, meaning it is hard to tell whether something is active or the focus, or just sat there.
The icons are all new, and horrible. THey are pretty but no longer act as visual descriptors of what they lead to.
Media Center (misspelled) is an abortion. How wonderfully pretty it is. How long it takes to do things. How restricted it actually is when you use it. THis to me is what a Mac looks like, and why I have never considerd one.
I can no longer find what i want; they have renamed some things as if for the sake of it. Accessibility is now Ease of Access. Display has gone from the Control Panel.
Windows Explorer
I do like the Start button that lets you key the name of the application. I do hate the new menus and fly ups/ outs and whatever.
I like the search which begins to find things immediately. But it will work less, as i have switched off the indexing which gained a little speed.
So that's two little things up versus a whole raft of downs.
If I wanted to learn new ways of doing things I should have considered a Mac. (And i never thought i would say that)
I downloaded the Office 2007 trial, and its a screen hog. More pretty space wasting rubbish - the tool bars come along hte top of the screen. Has no one told Microsoft that most computers come with wide screen, so they are taking away valuable document viewing space. Yes I can switch them off. Then its at least two clicks to everything. IN 2003 I had my button bar of small buttons that took up two rows. This is twice as deep, on a screen that is not as tall. I'd rather have them down one side, but its not an option.
Wow - I was going to post a two line comment, and got all upset. I'm going to stop now and let my blood pressure return to normal.
Matthew Thorne / 26/11/2007 / 11:39 / http://www.chilisoft.co.uk
Vista is an incredibly bloated and wasteful piece of software. An operating system is supposed to provide a simple harmony between man and machine. It is crazy the level of system harware required just to run vista. I think computer users over the last few years have become more savvy, which is the reason companies like m$ have difficulty in pushing products that really don't have market. Why do we need another operating system anyway?
Richard Lyon / 27/11/2007 / 00:33 / http://richardlyon.co.uk
Vista is overdeveloped... there is no way to get around that simple fact. With such pressure and near-bottomless funds, Windows could and did afford to splooge on a gazillion UI designers... and too many cooks spoil the broth.
The interface is over-complicated, with simple stuff becoming complicated just so that complicated stuff can become simpler.
I use Ubuntu 7.10 Linux now, and it is so much quicker, has all the software I need, and IS FREE.
Andrew Cole / 30/11/2007 / 11:19
I am not a fan of Vista as so many people who know anything are not either, but I get sick and tired of hearing people promote Linux and Macs as acceptable solutions. There is a reason Linux and Macs are so secure. What is their secret you ask? Nobody gives a damn about finding loop holes and hacks because so much of the market share is held my windows. If every hacker that was currently working on some virus or crack for windows switched gears tomorrow on Linux or Mac then we would see a serious decline in the reliability of those OS's. It's almost like praising the French army for having so few defeats when their strategy hasn't even been tested on the battlefield.
All cheap shots at the French aside, Windows has a dominating monopoly like effect on the market, and just as they have the best software available because the the enormous stock of programming working on said software, so too will they have an equal share of glitches and hacks and bugs. I use XP, and until software developers start taking other OS's serious enough to make third party software comparable then it makes little since to abandon it.
Liam Rickerby / 02/12/2007 / 08:30 / http://www.liamrickerby.com
I bought Vista on launch, installed to my HP laptop with a decent spec and was incredibly disappointed. Microsoft should concentrate on making the OS and the extras last.
After a couple of months with Vista I couldn't take it anymore and bought a MacBook, what a difference turn it on and it works, simple.
jon / 02/12/2007 / 08:54 / http://pinaslink.com
We have recently purchased a lenovo intel Quad desktop with home vista, after 2 weeks of usage my wife is already complaining that its too slow. XP would have performed a lot better.
Mark / 03/12/2007 / 08:40
I hate to be a pedant, but the article uses an incorrect word twice. It's damned, not dammed. It's "damned if I do..." as in damned to hell; not "dammed if I do" which would mean blocked up if I do.
Sascha / 05/12/2007 / 15:13 / http://www.iforen.com
I hate Vista, I had to switch from XP when I bought a new laptop. I do not see any improvements - only unnecessary changes.
sk / 07/12/2007 / 07:18 / http://www.makefive.com
Takes up a lot of memory. 2g ram was enough for xp, but 4G is not enough to run the VISTA.
Most of applications are not ready for VISTA yet.
Ehab Tarabay / 12/12/2007 / 10:37 / http://www.ehabt.com
XP was the greatest thing left Redmond.
But i remember about 8 years ago it was bad mouthed even more than vista now.
i believe within a couple of years people will look at XP and laugh saying, i can't believe we used to like that.
just the way we look to win98 now.
so to be honest, what is Vista ? it is just windows XP + better security + better GUI + more features + lots of other stuff...
the only thing that irritate me Aero consume way too much resources, and i think that was done on purpose, and that what piss me off, Microsoft was Evil in this step more than ever. Other than Vista is great, all what you need is one of a hell powerful PC , and vista will run as a charm.
Mark Voce / 12/12/2007 / 13:03 / http://www.markvoce.co.uk
I am a photographer, web designer and IT Manager and since upgrading my Windows PC to Vista Ultimate I was so impressed... not... i went out and bought a brand new Mac which has now been upgraded to OS 10.5 Leopard.
I was quite happy with XP but Vista just seems awkward to use and untidy, the icons in the My Documents folder, why are some the new stylish blue type and anything you create ends up reverting back to yellow folders as seen in XP, it feels like that they started changing some bits but left others as they were in XP it is this messy look that really annoys me, yes they can be changed, but I shouldn't need to. The control panel is a mess, especially the network settings
From the moment I started using OS 10.5 Leopard I realized how far ahead Apple are compared to Microsoft, it is fast and just works, the aesthetics are awesome and it is so logical to use compared to Vista. Expose and Spaces on the Mac are way ahead of Aero on Vista, they actually have a use rather than just looking pretty.
I can safely say I will not being purchasing another Windows PC from here on in its Mac all the way.
Berta Berlin / 17/01/2008 / 07:14 / http://www.anwalt-seiten.de
That's a pretty good article to point out the outrageous lordliness of Microsoft. With Vista MS says like "eat or die" to the customer - but it's more of a "eat and die". Lately I was buying a PC and had to pay for an XP downgrade!
Actually I installed Linux then - it came for free and it's not as annoying as Vista. Soon I switch to apple.
Hasta la Vista, Vista!
Rory Clapham / 21/01/2008 / 20:42 / http://www.cobramedia.co.uk
I'll be honest. I'm sick of people saying just how bad vista is and how much of awaste of time it is. Yes, it's not al that it was cut out to be and yes the UAC is slightly annoying at times, but to be honest there is nothing wrong with it at all.
I have lots of friends who recieved laptops for christmas with Vista preinstalled on it and I'll tell you what: Not a single one of them wants to go back to XP. You can aruge all you like that it's not secure and everything, but the simple fact is it's only as secure as you make it.
It's simple it's easy. Everyone who even has minimal computing experience agrees.
I'm NOT a "Microsoft Fanboy" before ANY of you say, I'm just sick of people bashing some good software because they want to look cool and agree with the big dogs.
Matt / 03/02/2008 / 15:05 / http://www.the-complete-guide.com
Have to agree with Rory there, Vista isn't all that bad, in fact most people just don't like change and simply need time to get used to a new system. Deal with it! :)
Ryan Cabrera / 21/02/2008 / 22:56 / http://www.ticketwood.com
A major update to Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT)'s Windows Vista operating system could leave computers vulnerable to hackers and malware as the service pack prevents several widely used antivirus programs from operating.
The list of security products that Windows Vista Service Pack 1 blocks includes Zone Alarm Security Suite 7.1, Trend Micro Internet Security 2008, and BitDefender 10. It also blocks the 2008 version of the Jiangmin antivirus product.
David / 24/02/2008 / 00:50 / http://www.iphone-shaq.com
Vista is overdeveloped... there is no way to get around that simple fact. With such pressure and near-bottomless funds, Windows could and did afford to splooge on a gazillion UI designers... and too many cooks spoil the broth.
The interface is over-complicated, with simple stuff becoming complicated just so that complicated stuff can become simpler.
Takes up a lot of memory. 2g ram was enough for xp, but 4G is not enough to run the VISTA.
Most of applications are not ready for VISTA yet.
I use Ubuntu 7.10 Linux now, and it is so much quicker, has all the software I need, and IS FREE.
jon / 07/04/2008 / 08:26 / http://www.geekiegadgets.com
I still think that XP is much more efficient than vista. I have a new PC with vista in it, sometimes it is a bit slugish.for sure if i use XP in my new system... everything would be a breeze. The only thing i dont know if both Vista and XP standard editions support multiple processors
Barry / 08/05/2008 / 06:21 / http://www.amdsupport.ca
XP is rock solid right now and much faster than Vista. Moving away from an operating system that works for me is not going to happen soon. I have read and seen too many horror stories about Vista right now and I'm comfortable with what I have and with the install base that I have at my office that is running XP.
